In Fall 2006 Raising A Reader MA (RAR MA) partnered with ROCA in Chelsea, MA, to bring the RAR program to their Healthy Families home visiting program, which serves parents who have had their first child before the age of twenty. Families participated in a survey, which aims to analyze the impact of the Raising A Reader program on parent behavior regarding sharing books with their children. Twenty-seven completed the pre-survey, and 30 families completed the post-survey.
Because research has shown that “the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children,” (1) we focus our attention on behavior changes in the key area of frequency of sharing books at home. Healthy Families families showed remarkable progress in this area. Before participating in Raising A Reader, 8% of parents reported sharing books with their children 3 or more times a week, and 42% reported that they never shared books. After Raising A Reader, 100% of families were sharing books 3 or more times a week, with 37% sharing 5 or more times a week.
In addition to influencing behavior change in participating families, RAR also strives to remove barriers to reading that families often face, including the accessibility of books. Before participating in Raising A Reader, 11% of respondents reported having 10 or more books in the home. After the program, this number had grown to 74%, an increase of 63 percentage points. Results also show that families are making use of local resources to access these books. Before Raising A Reader, 4% of families visited the library more than once or twice a year; following the program, 69% were making visits at least several times a year, with 38% going at least monthly.
Tables
Reading Episodes
Library Visits
(1) Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading. The National Academy of Education, 1985.